


Paddling in the Cherwell

by LadyAJ_13



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Happy Morse, Ice Cream, M/M, Pining, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 19:56:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20431571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAJ_13/pseuds/LadyAJ_13
Summary: Its one of those last gasp summer days, when the mercury shoots up unexpectedly and people flood the streets for a final fling with sunshine.





	Paddling in the Cherwell

**Author's Note:**

> Began this as a scene in a bigger Jarse fic I'm writing, but it doesn't really fit, so have a little one-off summeriness!

Its one of those last gasp summer days, when the mercury shoots up unexpectedly and people flood the streets for a final fling with sunshine. Girls walk in mini skirts and shorts, sandals, their bare legs tanned and on display for one last time before tights and boots are dug out from the back of the wardrobe. Men roll up their shirt sleeves and open their collars. 

Unless you're a policeman.

“Be glad you're not in uniform.” Morse shoots a sideways glance at Peter, questioningly. “Just saying I wouldn't like to be in jacket and hat right now.”

“Mmm.”

Peter has ditched his suit jacket. He's not even sure where he left it – probably slung over his chair in the office. Its not professional to undo his cuffs though, or discard his tie. It feels like its strangling him. 

“Aren't you melting in all that?”

Morse – the bloody idiot – is still suited and booted, the hair at the nape of his neck turning dark with sweat. 

“Take it off, for God's sake.” Morse quirks an eyebrow at that, and Peter realises what he's said. He refuses to qualify, though, and make an admission of what it sounded like. “Fine, but if you keel over I'm leaving you here.”

Here being the middle of town on market day, trying to track down a lead in this case. Any lead, at this point, although specifically the tobacconist witness who is meant to be manning a stall right now. Peter sighs. They've been up this row before. He swears the vendors are moving around on him. They turn the corner and double back down the other side. The fishmonger – despite the smell – is actually  _tempting_ with all that ice...

“He's not here.”

“Yes thank you Morse-”

“No, he's actually not here. We're not missing him. We've checked every corner.”

Peter scans their vicinity. They've definitely passed that shirt stand at least twice. “It's knocking off time anyway. We'll pick up with him tomorrow, the wife said he'll be back in the shop then.”

“Do you need to go back to the station?”

“No. Why?”

Morse has that glint in his eye, the one that says he's got a good idea, or that he's about to do something stupid. Sometimes its both. Peter knows he's going to follow, but he stalls for time, cutting back through a gap between two red and white striped tents to the ice cream truck he'd noted earlier.

“99?”

“You buying?”

“I'm asking aren't I?”

Only right, probably, as senior officer. Its not that he wants to treat Morse, because that would be ridiculous. But there's something win-win about a situation that gets Morse consuming food instead of alcohol and – well. He looks kind of... pretty in the sunlight. Not that Peter would ever be able to tell him that. Kind of something else when he's licking at that cone, too.

“This way.” Morse tilts his head, leading them down shaded alleyways and cut-throughs. Peter knows Oxford inside out, but he forgets sometimes that this was Morse's home too, before it became his place of heartbreak, and later, criminals. That he knows its lighter side. They take the back streets, passing students and clocked-off secretaries in brightly coloured summer garb, and he thinks he knows where Morse is taking them.

“Fancy a swim do you?”

Morse crunches the last of his cone and grins at him. “Off-duty now, aren't we?” They pop out on the river, and Morse leads them to a patch of grass. Finally, finally, he strips off the jacket, and his tie joins it just as quickly, wrenching open his shirt collar button.

“Its not a swimming zone.”

Morse looks at the other groups. There are families picnicking and young couples lounging. There are at least a dozen people in the water, either dangling their feet or full-on swimming. It's murky and brownish but it glitters invitingly in the sunlight. Morse leans close, close enough to murmur in his ear. Peter can feel the heat of him and smell the trace remains of his aftershave. “You going to pull out your warrant card?”

“No.”

A lightning quick grin, and Morse strips off his shirt. Peter swallows, and stares fixedly at the next group along. Two guys, two girls. Probably early twenties. Don't have the look of students though, he reckons they're townies-

“At least take the tie off.” Morse reaches out and twitches it, and Peter's hands fly up to catch at the fabric. He knows what it looks like – two friends, just ribbing each other, it can't be anything else, not this public – but that's not what it _feels_ like. Morse has kicked off his shoes though, and peeled off his socks, before Peter can pull apart the tie's knot. Luckily he seems to be stopping there, because Peter's not sure he could take those trousers coming off. Besides, he probably would have to get the warrant card out if that happened, and how embarrassing is that, arresting your own constable for public indecency? But Morse just folds up the legs until half his milky white shins are exposed, then slumps down on his back, using his discarded jacket as a pillow.

Peter wrenches his gaze away, staring instead at the water until the reflected sunlight burns spots on his vision. 

“Shoes too,” Morse mumbles, eyes closed and toes wriggling in the grass. “Honestly you're acting like you've never laid out in a park.”

He sits. He has, of course he has. But usually its because there's a girl he's trying to impress, and he'd borrowed a blanket and a picnic basket and set everything out with a flourish. He hasn't done this – an unplanned sprawl at the end of a long day – ever. He hasn't laid back, skin to grass, since childhood. And even then... they're memories he doesn't tend to revisit, too tied up in everything else. He unties his shoes and slips them both off. When he tucks his socks carefully inside each one, he's surprised by the whisper of breeze across his skin. It feels vulnerable. He digs his toes into the grass, unable to remember the last time he was outside without shoes on, and looks up to find Morse staring at him.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Peter isn’t going to be first to look away, but Morse just sighs and flutters his eyes closed again. “D'you want to paddle?” he asks to the sky. 

Peter watches the water dubiously. “It's kind of brown.”

“Well I don't recommend you drink it, just walk in it.”

It is tempting. In a weird way, a way that repulses as much as it attracts. The opaqueness could be hiding anything, and shreds of leaf and grass float on the surface that will stick to his skin. But he knows it will be cooler even than the breeze that tickles his toes.

He looks down at Morse, his eyes closed against the light and face relaxed. The sunshine picks up the red tones of his hair, bringing it to life against the green grass. A spider crawls along a grass stalk and Peter captures it before it can drop onto Morse's face, setting it down on the other side. 

“It's way too hot. I think I will.”

God, Morse is actually being gentle with him.

He thinks decidedly of Hope instead. How when he met her, she seemed the best bits of everyone he knew. The humour and beauty of Joan. The down to earth nature of Strange, good for a few drinks down the pub. Thursday's kindness. Morse's intelligence and drive. She’s everything he wants. Everything he can want.

He thinks he might love her.

But this Morse, he thinks, that's opening his eyes and sitting up. This side of him, the one that grins easily and scrambles to his feet. The one he didn't know existed, the one who kicks off shoes and lays out on grass and – now – pulls Peter into the river like two schoolboys, into water that's a cold shock after hot air.

If things were different. Maybe.

They splash for a bit. It seems a natural reaction to finding themselves here, and its a distraction (a terrible, self-sabotaging distraction) from the water droplets where they cling to Morse's chest and the way he smiles (he never smiles like that, this is precious, remember this).

Peter knows he's lucky; he has Hope, and for now he has Morse too – a friend, at last, because they can't not be after this. Can't sit on a riverbank with feet in gently swirling water, can't stretch out with heads on balled up clothes, can't let feet sun-dry before grimacing at the pull of cotton socks on half-wet feet and leather shoes in summer heat. Can't down a pint apiece, dehydrated, in the blinding dimness of an Oxford pub, stifling laughter, giddy summer fever sparkling across an evening that one day he'll wonder if it happened at all. No, can't do that, and come out as just sergeant and constable.

He thinks of how he'd want them to come out, in another world. Of following Morse home and pressing him into sheets still rumpled from the morning, feeling his breath hitch as they press together, and tasting those lips suddenly so quick to look on him and curve into effortless pleasure. He has no reason to think he'd be accepted, but today feels alive with possibility, and he can't imagine Morse turning him down. 

But this isn't another world. It's this one, where tomorrow will come and they will be DS Jakes and DC Morse, and Hope will call and Morse will dive head-first into a case, darkening and hardening and saving the day for others but using up himself. Perhaps, after today, there will be less sniping. There might be a kind word, or a firm, earnestly meant handshake.

But the rest... that is for if things were different.

**Author's Note:**

> I learnt earlier this year that not all Americans know what paddling is. It's when British people go for a walk in the sea, because its too cold to swim in it for 99.99% of the year. You take off your shoes, roll up your trousers (or hike up your skirt) and wade about, from ankles up to knees if you're feeling brave. Rogue waves will always splash above where you've rolled your clothes up to. If no sea is available, you can substitute with any water. It's not elegant but its a British summer tradition.
> 
> A 99 is an ice cream; vanilla soft-serve ice cream in a cone with a flake (chocolate stick) stuck in it. If you like Good Omens, its what CrowleyasAziraphale has in the park scene. They cost 99 pence (or at least they did. With inflation, could be more now...)


End file.
